my cheeriest poem this week

with the cadence of "Noisy Nora"

The movie's not as funny
as it seemed to be last time.
I may not be laughing,
but not crying means I'm fine.

I had a quite relaxing day
with enough time to enjoy
those painlessly lapsed hours
on my bed with no employ.

My friends were on the river.
I was invited to attend,
but I avoided sunburn.
And who needs time with friends?

I managed to go shopping,
a chore put off 'til now,
but I made it home with only
chocolate and no chow.

I find it's to be expected
I'm not always at my best,
but if I didn't know better,
I'd say that I'm depressed.

At first I avoided showering
but then I showered twice.
I couldn't find a way to pass
the time that was as nice.

I didn't want to talk at all,
but I waited by the phone.
While company's annoying,
it's an improvement on "alone."

I didn't stop to eat a meal,
for nothing sounded good.
I've always found hot cocoa
a good substitute for food.

I found the inspiration
with direction from my muse,
but each new poem written
sounded darker and confused.

I guess I needed time
to myself in which to rest--
I'm just not used to being
emotionally distressed--
but if I had to admit it,
and I will if pressed,
it might just look as though
I'm a little bit depressed.

distance

I've been thinking today. A lot. Mostly about distance. A quote came to mind from the movie I.Q. Alas, it is not quoted in IMDB so I cannot relate it here correctly. It is where Catherine, explaining some theory or another, states that it is impossible for two people to dance. The reason being is that you always travel half the distance between two points, therefore never reaching your destination although critically narrowing the distance. I thought of that today, and how no matter how much effort one person puts forth to close the distance between him and someone else, inevitably at some point the other person must come the other half. Or, I guess, the first person can aim for double.

class of

The last time I saw these people, we were wearing mortar boards and sitting in a chapel the size of the Death Star. Now they are again wearing those goofy hats and dresses and facing a dark and unknown future while a band plays Pomp and Circumstance and their parents wave rosettes. I looked at them walking through the Co-op with their fan clubs in tow, parents who arranged jobs for them either through contacts or prayers, and I thought what a joke it all is. And then I started crying. I just got left behind. First Rory and now all of my high school class have taken that next step from which I am temporarily barred.

Then, Sunday, I received two messages via Facebook from two such persons, not met in four years, only these were the pleasant visage of the high school memories:

Brittany and I became immediate friends on the first day of fifth grade. The friendship stuck, though with differing school schedules we were not as close during high school. Then after the fateful walk we never talked again. Until Wednesday, when after a few brief emails we figured out that we are both in town and I called her to make plans to meet up. The conversation felt like we had talked the day before, that those four years hadn't existed. It is lovely to think I have a friend in town. A friend who can remind me of the good parts of my past. A friend who knows me already. A friend who hasn't graduated college yet. I knew I still loved her when I heard her say, "I was so depressed this weekend with our entire class graduating that I locked myself in my apartment and wouldn't see anyone." Kindred spirits!

The second girl is Rachel Werth, who above anyone I've ever known, even Joyce, has marched to the beat of her own drum. And I wouldn't say there was any sort of rhythm. Or much marching for that matter. She kinda ambled to her own lute. She disappeared before we donned the caps and gowns, slipping out of the system and my life. I've worried about her for almost five years, but now I know she is okay. She is happy. And she is graduating before I will! Oh, the injustice! She dropped out and got knocked up and still, still, she is going to beat me across the finish line.

I know. I know. It's not a competition. The point is making sure I am driving myself with the best of what's in me, working for my goals, trying to reach my potential, never quitting. (Can you hear the sarcasm or the maniacal self-torturing laughter?) With all these reunions, on top of all the new people I've met, it has never become any easier to say I am taking time off from school. I get the same pitying look from everyone when I tell them I plan to graduate, like even those who have no education themselves don't think very much of my plan. That's why I like Brittany and Rachel--even though it's not a competition--because both of them know what it's like to alter the prescribed four year plan. And what it's like to hate with poisonous envy those who could fulfill it every jot and tittle and diploma.

swing

I sit sour on a swing and study the world
with all its rich purple textures
and perfumed sounds, lost to it all,
even the russet grating under my palm.
Pensive. Pendulous.

I press my feet against the torpid ground
and feel my thighs force the earth away.
The corpulent globe recedes amid a cacophony
of rusty squeaks before it rushes back.

Do not break the fall.

The fulcrum carries me into flight away from dour doldrums
until I soar chained and dip in my dance,
running a pendulum course.

The air with her violent kiss breaks my maw and feeds me
until all my pain is nursed away
in the rhythm of fro and to.

Dismounting,
the verdant mattress still ebbing and billowing under my toes,
I find my thoughts are once more ductile,
stilled by the motion of the earth and me.

calling all fans

Not mine of course. Tomorrow is Gilmore Girls season finale, but rumor has spread rampantly that GG got canceled, despite its planned one last season, thus turning tomorrow night's Luke and Lorelai reunion into the SERIES finale. I wanted to check on this rumor to see for myself from a reliable source, but my computer lab has blocked the Gilmore Girls link on the WB website. Of all the sites to block! Does anyone know if this is true? What I mean by that, is go check the website, darn it, and tell me before I implode!

smoke

So, it turns out, if a smoke detector anywhere in my building is set off, all the blazing fire alarms break forth into demonic heraldry. And the only thing that can stop them is the authority of the much-delayed fire department. If it were anything but my pot-smoking neighbors, I'd have burned alive in my bed, because, forget evacuating, I stuffed my ears with orange plugs and tried to sleep despite the noise. My only concern was, if I did have to flee the burning ruin of my every earthly possession, would I have time to grab my thumb drive?

What can I say? I'm a girl who knows her priorities.

very happy birthday

Yesterday I turned twenty-two. This morning I planned to write a simple blog about the nice things that happened on my birthday (like my coworkers buying me a cupcake with a candle in it) but I didn't think that much about it today.

William asked me out. Again. At first I was totally clueless and thought I was agreeing to a group outing. Then I figured out that I had been asked on a date. I didn't know what to do, so in line with my character I did nothing. I called Kevin and Emilie and told them of my blunder and the difficulty facing me. Kevin, of course, was highly amused and even completely indifferent as to whether or not I went, though he did offer to chaperone. Punk. That only increased my discomfiture, because now there were two sides (however facetious the one) to my choice. Kevin and Emilie both said to go, and I did not want to. I wanted to go out with friends, that being such a rare occurrence for me, but I had a sneaking suspicion that William wasn't entirely disinterested. If he hadn't made those awkward advances four months ago, I wouldn't have had any qualms about hanging out one-on-one. I'd do it with Dan Jones or Jared or Abinadi, no sweat. So while I saw the necessity of cancelling, I hesitated.

I think the main reason for my hesitation--and you may chide me if you like--is that I knew it would be vastly uncomfortable for me. Especially if he really meant it when he said we could be friends. Did I want to embarrass him and myself by mentioning my unavailability when he clearly knows of my relationship with Kevin? I kept putting it off until I could convince Emilie (my conscience) that texting him wasn't tactless.

I spent the morning and early afternoon consulting her via text-messages (the office was rather slow today). I asked her if I should text him or call him to cancel. She did not take that as an either/or question and so replied, "unless you want to go out with him." Good grief! I meant, would it be more tactless to text him now or to wait three hours and call last minute when I get out of work. She said that Ted said that if I went to the movie I'd be leading William on. That didn't exactly answer my question, but it was better than either of the two options I'd presented her. I immediately sent the text message; something polite and distant, like I don't think it's a good idea to see a movie together. Or something along those lines.

Ted's words got me thinking. No matter what, I would have cancelled with William, because I would have been more uncomfortable alone with him than I would calling him to ditch out. And this is all about my comfort. That includes the comfort of my conscience, because when it nags I am utterly distressed. I once led on one of Ted's best friends. I thought about that today. I still squirm a little with guilt. I dated Jon because he made me feel desired, desirable. My vanity liked him immensely, and he was my friend truly. He was there before I chose Kevin, and he was there the summer Kevin was away, and he was there when Kevin and I weren't talking, and he was there two days after Kevin dumped me. While Jon is an awesome guy, he really should have had more self-respect than to come for me every time I missed Kevin and beckoned for a substitute. I was (there is no other term for it) a bitch.

I didn't want to do the same thing to William, and it's not just because I don't anticipate being single in Austin. Sadly, it's not out of compassion for William either. It's because I want to think of myself as a good person. Really my vanity is limitless. But I don't need to string along an admirer, even though he does text me back to tell me I am incredible after I ditch out. (A side rant: a person shouldn't think I am incredible until I go to great lengths to impress him! And, no matter what Emilie says about it being a cute gesture on his part, it is still improper to ask out someone who is dating someone else! I was rather irritated at Emilie who looked fondly on William's overtures, reasoning that I am not yet taken. Grr. End rant.)

Mostly what overcame my vanity and my seemingly-constant and certainly damaging need to feel desired was simply that it came the day after my birthday. I'm not saying that my natural innocence shows through on that day...though I do like to think so. Rather, it is the first birthday of mine that I got to spend with Kevin. Three years ago I was in McKinney, while he was in DC. He emailed me at exactly midnight the morning of my birthday, however, knowing that I would check for warm wishes. Two years ago I was with Jon and not speaking to Kevin and denying that I was not speaking to Kevin. Last year he was in Austin, and I was anticipating the trip I'd be making there in 72 days. And this year, he kissed me.

Yesterday I turned twenty-two. Today I turned twenty-two and one day.

crazy afraid

The crazy people of Austin's drag constantly make me uncomfortable. There is the deaf woman who rants to herself in sign language. The man who cut the crotch out of his pants for who knows what reason, and much to my horror. The girl who wears all white, including painting her body, but neglecting a bra. Then there are all those who are crazy in the normal been-on-drugs-too-long kinda way. But today I felt frightened, really truly.

When he showed up at the bus stop I immediately felt nervous. Perhaps because he kept staring at me with an unfocused gaze, such as when Joyce stares at your neck like Dracula during Lent. I make jokes, but he was strange, a scary strange, and he kept edging closer, shifting this blue beer cooler by his feet and stroking his stomach with his fingertips.

Not being an idiot, I planned to let this man board a bus first, but when the 5:42 came I sprinted toward it: it was safer than the bus stop because it was full of people. Full to the breaking point. That was the problem. The bus driver waved me away from the doors and pointed to the next bus which was completely empty. They were all switching buses. Crazy man was looking the other way and a torrent of mishandled bus passengers were following me, so I went ahead and boarded the second bus. First aboard. And before many others came the man clutching the blue cooler and walking with his body leaning forward. The entire bus sat open for the taking and he took the seat next to me before I could move to the aisle to block him.

For a few blocks I told myself I was being judgmental, that he was crazy but harmless, that I was letting my discomfort out of my control. But soon I didn't have the presence of mind to talk myself out of being afraid. He kept leaning closer, the kind of close that only Kevin has a right to be near me. He stared quite openly, rocking slightly, raking me with his eyes. I tried to keep my eyes focused out the window, tried to fit my body into the crack between my seat and the glass. Tried to escape the nearness of the crazy next to me.

I don't know what finally cracked me. But extreme fear flooded over me. I was on a crowded public bus (so crowded in fact that I could not have taken another seat) so this man could do nothing to me there. But I knew that he wasn't going to leave this bus before I did, and I could not get off alone to have him follow me away from the many passengers. The man shifted in his seat and I almost screamed. The rational side of my brain told me in a shaky voice that I could talk to the bus driver if the man was still on the bus when we neared my stop. I knew he would be. My fear bordered on hysteria, albeit behind a calm, bored commuter expression. I am not this afraid. Ever.

Then my mind grasped onto the Lord. I remembered the Stripling Warriors, thanks to breakfast time reading (my primary president would be so proud) and I prayed for protection. I thought on how he kept them from death and I knew God could keep me safe too. Please protect me, Father! I cried. Don't let him harm me!

Immediately the lid burst from the man's beer cooler, spilling ice onto the floor of the bus. Whatever else he carried inside stayed there, despite the jostling the cooler received on the floor. At the noise, the man jumped, as though being attacked, grabbed his cooler protectively under his arm and fled, racing from the bus, pushing open the doors himself. He did not stop running when he disembarked. My heart raced too.

Another stranger took his seat and could not have been much further than the crazy head been. Yet I felt safe afterward. And glad, very glad, that nothing happened.

consider the lillies

The night that the all-evil MasterCard SOBs decided to steal my money and break my heart (all legal according to the contract we'd signed years prior--Satan was the arbiter), I knelt to pray to my Heavenly Father. I did not ask for comfort, because I did not feel I deserved it. I did not ask for help, because I knew I didn't deserve that. Instead I said I was sorry. I said I was sorry for eighty-four-thousand things. For not listening. For telling Him what I had planned. For slapping away His gifts.

That last one was the biggest. How could I ask for help, I wondered, when He had already helped me before? I was thinking of Utah. My problems there, of the financial order, were tuition and paying off my debt. The Lord gave me the gift of government money, the hard-earned money of tax-payers everywhere, of which I was not yet one. The VA benefits were enough to pay my tuition, books and debt in two years' time. What a generous gift! It only applied, however, as long as I stayed in school. And four months ago, I left school.

The decision to move to Texas was mine. I made sure Heavenly Father didn't disapprove, but I pretty much worded it this way: Father, I want to go to Austin. I can do it, if You'll come too and take care of me. He agreed with a subtle reference to Matthew 6.

But once I got here, I let myself become unhappy. Heavenly Father took care of me, I reasoned, when He found me a job. Then the work was up to me. The hours put in, the careful budgeting, the anal payment of bills. I had enough-ish. At least I made no credit-card purchases, even if the balances stubbornly refused to shrink. And when I became bored with my job, I told myself to look past that to the next paycheck and the bills it would pay. When I missed school, I reasoned that if I kept up with my boring job and kept paying my bills then someday I could go back to school. But enough isn't always enough, and I got down on myself for being unsatisfied, and I felt sadness and remorse in addition to loneliness and dead dreams. And I thought it was all my fault and my well-deserved lot.

Then, when on my knees that fateful day, I got a gentle admonition. Quite a lecture, about many things, actually. One part of it (for I refuse to tell all) was, were I to put it in my less charitable words: stop playing a martyr and ask. It was as though Heavenly Father looked at me sternly and said, I never said you couldn't have more blessings; that was your thought. I cried to Him, that I thought I didn't deserve another chance because I had refused His great gifts before. You asked me to come with you. Now ask.

I bowed my head in shame, and were it not for His all-hearing ears He might not have caught the mumble. If I could get one of those 0% Interest credit card offers on balance transfers, then I could transfer my highest interest card over and more easily pay off my credit. It was a humble enough plea. But I felt right away my Father's pleasure that I had asked. So then I simply told Him I loved Him, and I didn't know how to fix my situation, but that I'd really like His help. I felt His love, even if it came with a message from Him saying, It's about time!

Two days later the credit card offer came. The job followed within a week.

The benefits of my new job are many. The money difference, will for instance enable me to pay off my debt by December--the same date I could have paid it off in Utah, even though I now have the added debt from the move--and still have a considerable (for me) savings.

Oh, and my company will pay for school too.

an allegory

There once was a man who was never born, but simply created for a convenient allegorical purpose. This is his story as I've heard it told:

A catastrophic flood hit his hometown and the water rose so quickly and so steadily that this man (let us call him Arthur, for reasons of our own) became stranded in his house. Soon he climbed onto the roof to escape the rising waters. Luckily, Arthur possessed great faith in God and more importantly in God's proclivity to answer the prayers of the faithful. So, kneeling on the gritty shingles amid swift brown currents, Arthur begged God to save him. Then he stumbled to his feet and watched the flood without fear.

A man, Arthur's neighbor, paddled by in a canoe, which got stuck on the rain gutter just long enough for the neighbor to extend Arthur an invitation to join him, but Arthur waved the man on, while he stood and waited for God's saving miracle. After a while, his legs ached from standing, so he sat on the ridgepole of the roof and watched the swirling, foaming water rise over the lower edge of the roof. But Arthur felt no fear.

Soon a large, yellow raft, powered by an outboard motor pushed along against the current: rescuers looking for those stranded in their homes. Arthur smiled pleasantly at the Christian example these poncho-wearing rescuers set, but he waved them away with a shout barely heard above the motor and the rain. God will save me, he told them. Away they chugged. Still Arthur waited, and he had absolutely no fear.

The water started lapping his toes and then his bottom. Before the strength of the current could grab him a ladder fell in front of Arthur's face from a helicopter up above. He stood on the precarious roof and waved cheerily to the pilot, but refused the ladder. He knew God would send a miracle to save him. When the helicopter left, the man climbed onto his chimney to give himself a little more time. The river swallowed his roof and rose along the bricks of the chimney, row by row.

The story as I heard it ends with the man drowning. He then rebukes God for not saving him. Predictably God recounts the canoe, the raft and the helicopter. What more could you want? God asked. It must have been a tough lesson for Arthur to learn. But it would have been tougher had Arthur figured it out before he died. As he watched the unstoppable flood creep ever nearer, knowing that nobody else would come and that it was his own fault.

chocolate makes everything better

My roommates took to baking on Monday night, 'round about the same time that I was bawling in my room. Tuesday morning as I ate breakfast, Araceli walked through the room. Oh, she said, pausing before the towel-covered cake pan. We made chocolate cake last night, so feel free to have some if you want. Thank you, I replied almost too sincerely. I know you like chocolate, she grinned with some hesitation. We held a twenty second chit-chat before she left for class. Before she did, however, I made a venture on my side too. Your hair looks beautiful, I told her, evoking a real smile. It's true, you know. Her hair did look beautiful.

return to spender

Yesterday felt a little like March 28th 2005 all over again. (Except the part with the babies! My clothes still smell like baby.) I got an email from my credit card company. Or I should say one of my credit card companies, for I have several. In said email, they informed me that my payment was past due. They charged me a late fee, which put me over my credit limit, so then they charged me an over-limit fee. Though I have not spent a cent on that card since I used it to buy gas on my move down here, my balance was fifty dollars over my limit. I didn't understand how this happened. I mailed my check the same day that I got my statement. I went to the mailbox on my way back to my apartment to cry. In the mailbox was my check returned the same day for reasons of insufficient address. How could the address be insufficient on a self-addressed envelope?! And why did it take the postal service fifteen days to return it to me after they stamped it Return to Sender?

I called the credit card company right away. The kid who answered the phone didn't help me any, but with assertiveness that would have done Heather proud, I asked for someone who could. I told him my problem, and I told him to fix it. Just drop the fees, I said. I know you can. I'll make the payment now online, but I don't deserve these fees. After the conversation that involved asking, demanding, rebuking and begging grew to such a length as to make me wonder if my cell phone company was in cahoots with MasterCard, I began to cry. The man had already removed the 35 dollar over-limit fee, but had told me repeatedly that he could not remove the late fee. I trusted my payment in the hands of someone else, he said. That's not their fault. They don't go by postmarked dates, but by the day payments are received. Don't trust the postal service. Thanks. Lesson learned. But I did cry. I told him, a complete stranger, that I've been trying to pay this card off. That I make all my payments on time and refrain from charging. This still puts me over my limit, I wept. If it will help, he offered pompously, I can put in a request for you for a limit increase. I hung up.

I hung up and sat at my desk, laying my head on my arms and sobbing my heart out. It wasn't really the money. Well, not just the money. I still had to double the payment I thought I already made just to get below the point where a service charge wouldn't put me over my limit again. But also, after three months of pristine behavior (and good behavior before that) I am back to where I started.

a relevant tangent

Right Field

Saturday summers, when I was a kid
We'd run to the schoolyard and here's what we did
We'd pick out the captains and we'd choose up the teams
It was always a measure of my self esteem
Cuz the fastest, the strongest, played shortstop and first
The last ones they picked were the worst
I never needed to ask, it was sealed,
I just took up my place in right field.
Playing...

...right field, it's easy, you know.
You can be awkward and you can be slow
That's why I'm here in right field
Just watching the dandelions grow

Playing right field can be lonely and dull
Little leagues never have lefties that pull
I'd dream of the day they'd hit one my way
They never did, but still I would pray
That I'd make a fantastic catch on the run
And not lose the ball in the sun
And then I'd awake from the long reverie
and pray that the ball never came out to me
Here in...

...right field, it's easy, you know.
You can be awkward and you can be slow
That's why I'm here in right field
Just watching the dandelions grow

Off in the distance, the game's dragging on,
There's strikes on the batter, some runners are on.
I don't know the inning, I've forgotten the score.
The whole team is yelling and I don't know what for.
Then suddenly everyone's looking at me
My mind has been wandering; what could it be?
They point at the sky and I look up above
And a baseball falls into my glove!

Here in right field, it's important you know.
You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw,
That's why I'm here in right field, just watching the dandelions grow!

on this day...

I may have a thing for traditions. I love holidays. Birthdays are always very special and I tend to remember anniversaries of all sorts. Dates just stick in my head and each annum becomes significant. Yesterday I celebrated (sort of) the years that have passed since a day where I failed. Today marks another anniversary, though not in years. It is three months since I arrived in Austin.

My experiences in Austin have been mostly of the internal sort. All that intrinsic crap that only coming-of-age novelists write about. Okay, I'll admit, the months have flown by in simplicity and rote. What angst I have experienced got compacted into the last week or so. Which basically means: it's time for a change.

The nature of this change is not yet clear to me. I've written fourteen pages in my journal about it and made a spreadsheet or two, and Nora, Emilie and Mom have been victims of my need to discuss it all. But that's just a girl trying to understand the problem, not yet moved on to solving it. I haven't written about any of these conundrums on my blog, because I haven't talked about it openly in this here the real world. I've tried, but all my friends know how lame my efforts generally are.

Poor April, she was the first one to demand of me: won't you say something! Bryan and Ted (opposites themselves in their communication habits) fought me tooth and nail to get me to say the things I had to.

And so, knowing my own proclivity not to talk about my concerns/worries/hurt feelings/anything that's not fictional, I feel like I ought to make a written commitment now, to say, at least I am talking about it all tonight. Because that's my plan, to gird up my loins and express myself. But just on the off-chance that I chicken out, I think I'll keep that quiet.

auld lang sine

I was reminded this morning that today is New Year's Day, the day to which I looked forward last year, the day in which I failed two years ago. But like last year, this day I feel more in limbo, in the process of turning the bend in the road. I am not at the apex. Though, if I think about it, I never have been in March. Even that awful day, two years ago, didn't end everything. That came on April 20th. If the date means nothing, then at least the fact that it was the last day of finals should. The last day of finals last year had me toasting Emilie at PF Changs and singing Rainy Days and Mondays. So while I feel a little crumbly and somewhat adrift today, I will wait and see how I feel in a month.

me time

Ted called me an hour after I'd been hit by the car. "Are you okay?" he asked me after a little while. I told him I thought I was a little bit in shock. "It's not that. You don't sound well." Ted, I've been crying for the past hour. Of course I don't sound well. "No, Audrey. There's something else going on, isn't there?" I didn't say anything at the time.

Yeah, there's something else going on. There are times, very predictably the first weekend of each month, that I cry seemingly for no reason. (Hormones are a reason, though.) But last Sunday was not one of those times. Neither was Tuesday or Wednesday. Nor was last night. A week of this? I mused. In the middle of the month? This can't be right.

I called my Mom, my sister, Emilie, my home teachers and Kevin. And then yesterday I turned off my phone.

It's the first time since before I moved here that I told myself the world could wait, when the hope that someone would reach out to me wasn't enough to keep me anchored to my cell. I went on a walk and left it behind. I never checked it, not once, to see if someone had called, if there was a text message or a voicemail. I felt free of my shackles. My phone no longer sat in the back of my mind like a large, red, lidless eye tempting me in my every move.

I spent the morning writing in my journal, reading scriptures and praying. I didn't have any answers by the end, but I felt calmer and now at least I know what many of the questions are. That's a relief.

slightly

I've noticed for two months now my lack of blog writing. If only I could find something meaningful enough to write, I thought. I agonized over the triviality of my existence. There is nothing worth writing here, I thought. But then I decided that the longer I waited the more pressure I put on myself to write something totally inspiring. So, to break the block, I'll settle for something slightly inspiring.

I can never say that I have no friends. Not only will my Heavenly Father never leave me (did I get my negatives right?), but neither will those my dearests in DC and Provo. I have friends: I call Emilie every day and others without Cingular every weekend. I just have no friends here (which is not a stab at Kevin, my very best friend. I mean, of course, besides him).

I have three opportunities in which to meet people and begin to develop relationships: home, work and church. The ways in which I have discovered where I won't be making friends are the subtle slights that come my way.

The first week living with Consuelo and Araceli, I expected we'd get along. I never hoped for the type of mindful happiness that came from sharing beds and secrets as with my previous roommates. But call me an optimist that I thought we'd be civil. Then one day I sat reading Harry Potter five at the table. Connie came in and commented on the size of the book. I suppose it is rather large, but I've had worse. She remarked in an off-handed manner that she could never get through such a volume. I asked companionably if she didn't like to read. "I guess I'm just more of a thinker," she said. I've heard comments between the two of them (I have three roommates but Laura doesn't count, since she's never home): "she just reads." Fine. I'm a freak. And now the kitchen seems to shrink if I am in there with one of them, and we never speak to each other unless business demands it, namely bills that need paying.

At work, I can use small talk and the energy that comes from a rush to give myself courage to speak to my coworkers. Then I got transferred upstairs to women's department. It is deathly still up there. The only way it stays open is that the one customer who comes in per hour spends over a hundred dollars on three poorly made albeit orange shirts. The time passes very slowly because there is nothing to clean, no one to help, nothing to restock and nobody with whom to converse. Yesterday, two girls I work with, Elisabeth and Erika, were leaning against the counter talking. As I walked up to them Elisabeth looked at me, then switched her story into Spanish. Erika replied in the same language. I nodded my head and walked away. Point taken. I wanted to tell her she could have just asked me to leave, but I couldn't remember how to say that in French.

For two full hours, I brooded over my loneliness, compacted by the looming Enrichment activity to which I felt determined to go. Church was just another place to be ignored. How, after so recent a slight, could I find the courage to go and attempt to make friends?

Then Elisabeth did it again. This time I had been at the counter first, and one of the security guards came over to chat. She began conversing with him in Spanish, but he looked at me and replied to her question in English. My heart swelled with gratitude for his thoughtfulness.

From then on I felt included (except by Elisabeth of course). I had conversations with Hortensia and Louise and felt the Almost feeling, that says how closely resembling friendship my interactions with them are. It made me slightly more optimistic and brave enough to venture to Enrichment. You know, I think I might be making friends there, too. I don't have them yet, but it'll happen.

grocery shopping the audrey way

I once received this piece of advice from a friend: never, ever use a shopping cart when you have to walk home with your groceries. Oh, would that I had listened! Not until I began placing my selected item on the conveyor belt did I begin to think that they looked a little...massive.

Sure enough, carrying it all home seemed a little comical and somewhat painful. My arms were strained and sore from moving the day prior and my hands were scratched, blistered and bruised. As I stumbled home along the rather busy four-lane road, I wished that I could just look enough like a bag woman that no one would pay me any mind. Oh, just don't look at me, I prayed. Embarrassingly enough, I had to stop and re-situate the load once or twice under the stares of passing motorists.

Humiliation never did seem to peak. In my parking lot a bag ripped, spilling cans and bottles at my feet. What sort of bagger puts all the cans in one bag and leaves another bearing only three ramen noodles?! I placed the expelled groceries into my purse and continued on from there, while two very able-bodied boys watched from where they stood talking by their new sports car.

For one heavenly moment I placed all the bags on the ground while I unlocked the pedestrian gate into my complex (and yes, I have a complex now), but as I hoisted the load I stepped onto the lawn, sliding my flip-flops through slippery new mud. Crash! Down I went, breaking the strap of my new purse and my fall, by landing on my recently acquired food. Did I land on the eggs or the tomatoes, I asked myself dryly. The eggs.

As comfortable as flip-flops can be, there is a downside to them. When they get dirty, so do your feet. I stomped the last fifty yards to my door with a clump of black clay clinging to my toes. I unloaded my groceries on my porch and bound my feet in the plastic bags before entering. Plastic rustled with each step I took, back and forth from the door to the kitchen putting away groceries. Between fits of tears and giggles, I washed my toes and thought how very much my style that whole afternoon had been.

list almost lost

My mom asked me to email her a paper I wrote in Family History about Bob's family. She has asked me this countless times since I wrote it in April. I finally put forth the effort to get it to her and couldn't find it on my U drive. My only other thought was the flash drive that sometimes works. And there it was. Along with other little treasures. The papers were mostly composed for my Personal History class, pages about my family, my childhood and adopting Step-Bob. Where they fall short in facts they are rich in truth.

And there was one last paper titled simply List. I wrote it on March 28th, the anniversary of the day I began to Fail. The list has 101 things I learned in the year prior, my way of turning my Failure into a success.

Some of the list includes things that are rather random: my hair makes me look like a cockatoo in the morning, Star Wars III was a let down. Snape is still on the side of good….yes he is!

Some are more proverbial: being honest means more than telling the truth, laughing cures everything…except when it doesn’t, and crying in front of other people is okay--In fact, it’s nicer than crying alone.

There are practical discoveries: Jet Blue is my favorite airline, and How to drive stick-shift .

Personal Growth: I can bear seeing my dad cry, I can write a complete novel, and I can get a good GPA.

I have personal testimony and long-term goals. There are things that are changing about me all the time, and things that will always, always stay the same. I have a unicorn.

semesters end

I think I cried myself to sleep again, but to be sure I'll have to ask Caitie. At any rate I know I cried a lot throughout the evening, starting when I met Emilie on campus at 4. Usually it was after a mention of homework or jobs or housing, but sometimes it was after questions of other sorts and once it was during Gilmore Girls. But last night I got a perspective on my tears. (I love being analytical and emotional at the same time!) It is because I am trying. All the messes in which I have invested myself for the next three weeks, I have invested in fully. Those semesters when I have failed (and I don't mean just school) are those in which I haven't cried toward the end.

My first semester I fell apart for a couple of days, until my home teachers came over to read me a quote they liked from President Hinkley. "Now, my dear sisters, that is the way with you. You are doing the best you can, and that best results in good to yourself and to others. Do not nag yourself with a sense of failure. Get on your knees and ask for the blessings of the Lord; then stand on your feet and do what you are asked to do. Then leave the matter in the hands of the Lord. You will discover that you have accomplished something beyond price."

The next semester my mom called as I worked on papers in the last weeks of April. I sobbed uncontrollably on the phone. I wanted to be done. I wanted to leave, to go home to my mom and give up. That is how I feel now. I got an email from my mom this morning that says she misses me and is happy I'll be home soon. I want very much to drop out of school this moment, fly to Texas and take up permanent residence with my mom. I want to be a little girl again. Yet, in my head I have these heroic dreams for myself. I see me sitting up at night in the library faithfully studying and writing papers. Those images don't coincide with me crawling into bed exhausted or frustratedly revising a paper half an hour before it's due. I am tormented with the idea that I could be doing it better.

Other semesters it has not been this way. Two of them ended without struggle. Of course, those two I gave up on somewhere in the middle. These weeks of finals were spent making spaghetti and fried chicken (separate meals) to feed those who were studying. One semester I bought books and fudge and walked happily in the rain. I had it easy, because I was not fighting against anything. I was not fighting for anything. But now I am fighting for a lot. And I will win. I'll just have a few minor breakdowns in the meanwhile.